The causal meaning of multiple worlds

How does the question of multiple worlds relate to causal analysis? I have devoted considerable space in this essay debating whether or not Anaximander may have claimed multiple, successive worlds. The reason I have done so, is that, as stated earlier, methodical statement concerning random creation and destruction will implicitly exhibit some notion of causality and causal structure, thus being pertinent to the analysis of causation.

I have so far established that Anaximander more than likely argued multiple

successive worlds. The very notion of multiple worlds leads the mind to the notion of possible worlds (at least my mind is led so), but these must not be confused. The multiple worlds of Anaximander (and of the atomists) were physical worlds, as real as this our world (to the

141 I am here referring to the atomists’ claim that the creation of the worlds from the vortexes happened by

‘necessity’, but the vortexes themselves happened ‘by chance’. Aristotle ridiculed them for this, but ‘chance’ in this respect might mean that the causes are epistemically unavailable to us, not necessarily that there are no causes. See also Taylor (1999:185-186).

142 Cf. Hankinson (1998:26; KRS 186)

atomists they were actual worlds as well, though Anaximander had to wait for them: to him they were successive in time).

These multiple (or innumerable) worlds, then, can be identical or they can be non-identical. The notion of innumerable identical worlds sounds intuitively as that of Nietzsche’s

‘eternal recurrence’; the causation of these worlds must be one of fatalistic determinism¹⁴³. As we have seen, though Anaximander employs the term χρεών, he does not appear to be fatalistic, though a certain mechanistic determinism appears to be reasonable to ascribe to him. A notion of innumerable non-identical worlds might then seem more suitable. This, however, depends on what we mean by ‘innumerable non-identical’. If there will be generated worlds for all eternity and none of them will resemble each other, there must be some reason for this, and a good one at that, we might add. In such a universe it may seem as though causation is near to non-existent; the connections of events in the world random and unpredictable. This would amount to indeterminism, a position we can be certain

Anaximander did not entertain. However the difference or non-identity between the multiple worlds does not depend on there being no connections in nature (and thus no causation). All that is needed in order to ensure difference of worlds is that the initial conditions of worldly generation are different each time. What we know of Anaximander does not directly invite a speculation on the conditions of each worldly generation. If that interpretation of

Anaximander claiming that ‘the eternal motion generates the worlds’ is followed, there is obvious possibilities of each world being generated under somewhat different circumstances.

If, let us say, the worlds are separated off from the periphery of the vortex that is eternal motion, then each point on that periphery could separate off a new world, under slightly different circumstances than the last (the points of the circle being the different

circumstances). I am not entirely confident that this would last for all eternity; it seems that the circle would be completed and the worlds would resemble each other again, and in that respect we are back in the eternal recurrence. The dangers of arguing from negation well in mind, I would think that if Anaximander really had such a spectacle as eternal recurrence in mind, he would have said something on it, or indicated it somehow. But it does not show up anywhere in the doxography.

Would such identical innumerable worlds follow from a notion of causation as necessary connection? Let us start in the other end: Since Hume the notion of necessary connections in causation has been criticised, it is rarely argued in contemporary causal

143 as Nietzsche indeed argued; the Greeks invented ‘free will’ in order to provide better entertainment for the gods, for in a deterministic world the gods always knew what would happen, he reasoned.

analysis¹⁴⁴. To the ancients there were no Hume and no such misgivings about necessity in nature, as we have seen from Anaximander’s (and Empedocles’ and Anaxagoras’) frequent use of ‘necessity’. The position of ‘causal realism’ was one not yet explicated or discovered;

it (we must assume) was the natural position for the ancient Greeks to view causation and natural connections from. We can therefore argue that there was no denying of the necessity with which the effects followed their causes in natural sequence. To support claims of this kind, we have such stories about causal development as we have seen earlier:

There is the reverberation of cosmic necessity in the early Greek idea of human fate, and the reverberation of human fate in the Greek conception of cosmic necessity (…) When finally the concept of physical cause emerged, it contained two elements (…): the productivity of the cause, and the necessity with which the effect follows upon the cause.” (Cerf 1942:169)

Having established that there was necessity in causation to the ancients, then, we can ask of what sort was this necessity? In this context we distinguish between analytic (or logical) necessity and metaphysical necessity. Though there are many other forms of necessity

(nomological, epistemic, moral¹⁴⁵, contingent¹⁴⁶); neither of these seem fitting to the subject at hand. Vlastos (1971) holds that to Plato in the Phaedo the causes are analytically necessary to their effects; “…he is implying that the laws of nature, could we but know them, would have the same necessity as do the truths of arithmetic and logic”, (1971:162). What supposedly motivates Plato to such extremes of necessity in causation is the theory of Forms being responsible (the cause) of something in something, e.g. ‘the beauty of the beautiful is because of the Form of Beauty’. There are certainly no Forms in Anaximander, and, it appears, no other reason either to ascribe to him the position that causal necessity equals analytical necessity. Hence, by default, it seems that we should apply metaphysical necessity of causation to Anaximander. We rest at this statement for the moment.

Let us return to the multiple worlds and their apparent identity. It seems we might rephrase the question that we raised concerning causality for the identity of the worlds; is it an analytical (logical) identity or a metaphysical? If there is analytical identity between the worlds it appears that we would not even be trapped in eternal recurrence; for from the vocabulary of possible worlds we know that two worlds of absolute identity cannot be two

144 The notion has had a certain renaissance since the 1970’s, before that it was next to unheard of to claim anything stronger than regularity in causation (cf. Psillos 2002:159 ff).

145 cf. Taylor, Kenneth, 2000. Truth & Meaning, Bodvin, Blackwell Publishers, pg 185

146 cf. Psillos (2002:161 ff)

different worlds: it is the same. Now, the worlds of Anaximander of which we speak are not the possible worlds of modal logic, they are actual physical existent worlds. Hence the

argument that identical worlds would not be different worlds, but the same, cannot be applied without some adjustment. An adjustment to this, then, is to argue that analytically necessary connections in causation would lead to one and only one world; whether that world is destroyed and recreated cyclically, well, that is simply a metaphysical question far beyond anyone’s ability to confirm or deny. It is a question concerning not the laws of nature and causation, but what happens outside of time, outside the laws of nature and outside causation.

From an analytical necessity in causation, then, it seems there follows the existence of one world alone.

It seems, then, that we at this point are left with a physical determinism in Anaximander that makes causal connections necessary, possibly with the strength of analytical necessity, such as it would make the multiple worlds identical, resembling the

‘eternal recurrence’ of certain philosophers. We have however grave misgivings about this conclusion, as the eternal recurrence is never indicated in the doxography, the analytical necessity of causation is wholly without independent foundation, and further the possibility that the entire interpretation of multiple worlds is unfit, as the causation analysis seems to indicate the existence of one and only one world.

To resolve these difficulties we shall further analyse the causation, and participants of causation, implied in Anaximander’s theories.